Copyright 1960

Independent Service for Information on the Vienna Youth Festival

324 College House Offices

1430 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

The Independent Service for Information on the Vienna Youth Festival is a non-profit, privately-supported educational association of students and recent graduates formed for the purpose of providing objective information to young Americans interested in the Vienna Youth Festival. The Service mailed its seven research publications (listed on inside cover) and bulletins to individuals, organizations, colleges and universities, offered background material and discussion groups on various subjects to be discussed at the Festival and maintained an formation center in Vienna.

Since the Festival, many of us who attended have met to discuss observations of the event and American participation in it. From these discussions and from our concern over the distorted picture of the Festival now being presented in the post-Festival publicity of it organizers has come the idea of this report. The information in it is derived from the observations and experiences of those several hundred independent Americans present, from the results of the Service’s post-Festival questionnaire, reports of Austrian and other non-Communist groups present during the Festival, observations of delegates from other countries, reports by the international press and statements of the Festival organizers themselves. The organization is such that Part I surveys the Festival in general and American participation in particular, while Parts II through V take up various aspects of the Festival itself in more detail and documentation.

We hope that this booklet will serve both as a research document for future studies of the Communist-sponsored Festivals and as interesting reading to the many friends here and abroad who have asked us about our experiences.

Director:

Gloria M. Steinem

Executive Officers:

Dr. Paul E. Sigmund, Jr.

Leonard N. Bebchick

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